


A Way of Life

by thecurlyginger



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: Angst and Humor, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-20
Updated: 2014-08-20
Packaged: 2018-02-14 00:18:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2170788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecurlyginger/pseuds/thecurlyginger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An exploration into Ben's unemployment during season 4.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Way of Life

**Author's Note:**

> While watching Ben fool around with hobbies, I laughed until I realized I'm exactly the same when I don't have work. Like exactly the same. Hence why I'm writing so much fanfic right now. Aaaannnywho, I hope you enjoy!

Being unemployed isn't just a situation – it's a way of life. Leslie tries to tell Ben in her sweet, sympathetic way that he has been working hard non-stop for _years_ , so why not enjoy the time off for a little bit? But he knows that that's not her real perspective, that if she were in this position for more than the week she was suspended until Chris let her come back to work, Leslie would go stir-crazy and there would be riots in front of City Hall. There's a difference between taking time off, like a break or vacation, and not having work to go to – not having a purpose.

It's a difficult adjustment; working five days a week doesn't seem like much until you're sitting at home and eating everything in sight because there's nothing better to do and no lunch hour to regulate when you can break for food. He's gone through two boxes of cereal in a week that he doesn't even eat at breakfast time, just dry out of the box while reading or watching TV. His breakfast food consumption has gotten fattening and elaborate – just the other day, he topped a toasted english muffin with a hash brown square, an egg, three pieces of bacon, and cheese.

Ben didn't even eat the heart attack between two pieces of bread until after 11am, waking up a mere hour before that.

His sleep schedule has never been more convoluted. Leslie will text him good morning a good three hours before he's awake and text him good night two hours before he turns the lights off and tries to sleep. Aside from the days he's seeing her, which are fewer and far between with all of the campaign insanity their relationship scandal has caused, Ben doesn't shave and only showers every other day. It's a little gross, but he's lacking the motivation to leave the house and be a person without his work.

After all, work was all he had to get over the Ice Town incident, boggling down and attending college, then working for the state and taking a job involving travel so he could keep moving and never look back. Ben needs that inspiration again.

He wakes up late one morning groggily, still not accustomed to 10 hours of sleep, and goes out to the kitchen. Andy and April have left their breakfast dishes in the sink, a box of Poptarts is out and opened, and the dishwasher is full of clean dishes from the load started two days ago. Sighing, Ben puts the dishes away before placing their dirty ones in. Feeling slightly accomplished, he begins cleaning the house. His hair begins to stick to his forehead with the exertion of scrubbing counters and bathtubs, mowing the lawn, and cleaning out the gutters.

Once the house is smelling of lemon-scented furniture polish and clean laundry from washing his sheets, Ben hops into his now-sparkly shower, sudsing his body and shaving his stubble. Putting on his nicest casual clothes, he dons a nice button-up shirt, his navy blue pants, and belt, emerging from his room just in time to see Andy and April come home.

“Dude,” Andy begins, running around, “this place looks great! You should come up with like, a way to make money to do this.”

Ben stares for a moment, incredulous. “You mean be a maid?”

“Oh yeah, that's a thing that exists,” Andy says to himself, deep in thought. “I mean, you _could_. I wouldn't judge.”

“I would,” April cuts in, plopping on the couch and turning on the TV.

Andy joins her with a bag of chips, and the two become engrossed in the show, completely ignoring Ben. “I'm gonna go meet up with Leslie. See you guys later.” With the sounds of them grunting in response behind him, he closes the door.

The fresh air is much nicer that the central air blowing in the house, the sun that's left among the night sky invigorating to Ben. He refuses to think disparaging thoughts and just drives to Leslie's house. When she opens the door in her work clothes but fuzzy slippers on rather than the heels that give her blisters, Ben stifles her surprised greeting with a rough kiss, pushing her into the house and closing the door behind them so he can make out with her against it. Every time he sees Leslie after just days apart, he's hungry for her, finding solace in her.

Ben's halfway through pulling the blazer off her arms when Leslie puts a hand on his chest. “Slow down,” she says with panting breaths. Once he pulls away, she's smiling at him. “Hello, how was your day? You know, small talk? General greetings?”

“Great, could be greater...” Ben mumbles against her neck, kissing while rubbing her shoulders.

Leslie nearly collapses at the sensation. “Mmm, more of that, please.”

Then they're in her bed, Leslie faced down with her blouse and bra removed (for optimal comfort of course and no other reason), and Ben straddling her around her waist, massaging her tense muscles. “Tough day?” He asks.

“I mean,” she starts, groaning and humming in appreciation when he gets right under the shoulder blade, “I love that everyone's supporting me and helping with the campaign. But sometimes it feels like I'm running it myself. I have to approve everything because as much as I love my friends, they're not experienced and make choices to have campaign tank-tops in _just_ a woman's size small and men's shirts in just extra-large. No other options or sizes!”

“Tom?” Ben asks.

Leslie nods into the pillow. “I wish...” She stops talking in the way that Ben knows to mean she's contemplating saying it aloud, wishing she could have just filed the thought away. Ben encourages her to continue while kissing up her spine. “I wish you could help us.”

He freezes above her, feeling a cold shiver run though him. “I-- Leslie, I can't have anything to do with your campaign. I'm poison to it. Even just promoting a festival got everyone to put the spotlight on my failure. How do you think they'll react when they hear that the Ice Clown is sinking his... frozen claws into another election?”

“Okay,” she says, but Ben can't control his blather.

“They'll think I'm influencing you. I'm already the reason that you lost your polling numbers. I can't go near it, I, I--”

She sits up, turning her neck as far as she can to look at him. “ _Stop_. You don't have to touch it, you don't have to go near my campaign. It's okay, Ben. But what's not okay is you blaming yourself for _our_ decision to be together.”

When did his hands start shaking? Ben grips onto his thighs and wills his hands to stop, turning his mouth into what he hopes is a smile at Leslie. Innocent, perfect Leslie who's campaign and dreams are going to shrivel and die if he so much as touches them.

She pats the bed beside her. “Come over here.” Ben obeys and lets Leslie kiss the worry off his brow and off his mouth. “You need to find something to do,” she tells him, looking at Ben with concern, “because you've gotta get your mind off of ruining my campaign. Which you didn't do.”

“I think I know what to do _right now_ ,” he says suggestively, taking advantage of her topless state and turning their conversation into begging for more and nonsensical noises of pleasure.

Considering Ben can't have sex with Leslie all day, every day (though not for lack of enthusiasm on her part), he takes on real hobbies. Claymation sounds interesting and time-consuming, so he jumps into that. He uses the camera his sister gave him when he started traveling from state to state with the intention of him taking photos of the scenery, instead using it to painstakingly photograph millimeters of movement to a song that helped him get through his failures of the early 90s. He's not tired of the song yet, though, so that's something...

Ben peruses yard sales on the weekends and finds a calzone cookbook for 50 cents, a steal really when he thinks about all the delicious options he has. While walking, he doubles over in laughter at the idea of the “Low Cal Calzone Zone” and scares a mother pushing a stroller. Probably not the best idea to laugh manically with unwashed hair and two-day old stubble. Returning home, Ben looks up the proper way to pronounce calzone, exclaiming “Nailed it!” even when he really, _really_ didn't.

That's around when Chris finds him, appeasing his calzone venture and watching painfully as Ben plays five seconds of a claymation video that took three weeks to do and has left him with nothing but a sore wrist and a REM song that won't get out of his head. Chris lets him drink a beer (“But only one; your metabolism is too slow to efficiently break down that bottle of poison”), and Ben decides to not tell Chris he's gone through two 24-packs in the month he's been unemployed.

The worst part? Chris means well, he always means well, and it's too difficult to ask him to leave so Ben can wallow in his misery alone. So he lets Chris stay to brainstorm with him and provide some needed company. But what's Ben to do? Beg to go back to work for a boring accounting firm with too-bright neon lights and too-few windows? Find equally unfulfilling work outside of the government where he's rooted himself for _decades_?

Leslie comes in hurriedly and determined, her rally's failure just propelling her to ask him again for help. There's a protest on his lips when she explains that she needs his expertise. His hands shake again, the cold flash striking him where he stands, but when Leslie's finished, _he's still standing_. No one is ostracizing him from the town, no one is sending him hate mail and calling home so often that his parents need to get a new number.

Ben's still in Pawnee, Leslie needs him, and apparently she could lose with or without him at this point, something about ice, dunking, and a broken arm in the others' conversations making him very interested in what actually happened. If he can help Leslie and get back in his political zone, as well as have an excuse to shower, then it's a risk worth taking.

Chris steps in, looking out for Ben's best interests, but Ben is done waiting for something more. He's going to take the Leslie Knope campaign and _make_ something more of it.  


End file.
